Posts Tagged ‘year in review’

In, January I set out to make 2017 my year of marketing. Have I learnt it? Well, I’ve definitely learnt a lot. But there is always more to know. January was also “book launch” month. I released Why Restaurants Fail and How to Exit VIM, which, despite both being short books, would turn out to be my most popular. Our friends Craig & Zoe welcomed Holly into the world.

Everyone knows that May is all about Eurovision. Portugal won for the first time. We discovered chanterelles in Pateley Bridge and said goodbye to Ho’s Chinese. On the back of my 30-Day Challenge, I launched my 4th book of 2017, Do More, Worry Less. And knocked a respectable 24 minutes off my half marathon time. Anxiety Leeds pitched at Leeds SOUP.

Finally, in December we celebrated the festive season. It wasn’t quite a white Christmas, but it did snow. Venla mastered the art of standing up and climbing and we celebrated Finland’s independence day. Elina became an auntie for the second time. We held the 8th annual Holiday Food Drive for local homeless shelters. I placed 9th in the Braham pie-athalon: a dualthon where you had to scoff a mince pie at each transition, and completed my first sportive.

Things started strong in January. I finished reading all the books while Finland junior team won the ice hockey world championship. We had fish month and the Humanist Action Group organised a food drive for local homeless shelters. James said goodbye to us and hello to South Korea.

After three months if waiting, we finally announced that Elina was pregnant: on April Fool’s Day. The wait almost killed me but was completely worth it. A great way to start April. I completed my first 20k run and my novel was published.

May started off cold. It was mostly less than 10 degrees. Except for the day of the Leeds Half Marathon, when it went up to 25. At least it was warm enough to barbeque. Elina had her 20-week scan and I launched a new version of my website. Democracy won in Wales, where the Loony Party achived a record 0.6% of the Welsh Assembly vote, and was defeated when the government announced it was not interested in respecting the will of the people. Ukraine triumphed in Eurovision and Leciester were crowned the unlikely champions of the Premier League. Finland went into the world ice hockey final unbeaten, only to cruelly lose 1-0 to Canada.

In August Team GB crushed it at the Rio Olympics, finishing second in the medals table. Tradgy stuck as my grandma passed away just two months before her fist great grandchild was due to arrive. We celebrated Leeds Pride and launched Rena Men. I helped Sky Sports go live with their new Premier League clips system.

The big news in November was Donald Trump being elected US president. I felt this rather overshadows the launch of Worfolk Anxiety Management and my new book, Technical Anxiety. I smashed it in the Abbey Dash, setting a new 10k personal best of 56:45 – a full 10 minutes faster than my previous Dash (though that one was a personal worst). Finnish Christmas Carols were sung.

For me, 2015 has been a year dominated by reading and wedding planning. I have been on a mission to get to the bottom of my reading list – a goal that has almost been achieved. Of course, before all of that, every new year starts the same way: clearing up from our New Year’s Eve party.

I have been a vegetarian for almost ten years. However, in January, I took the step of going from in principle to actually eliminating meat for a month or two. It was interesting. Elina spent the month wedding dress shopping, in Finland, or both. I said goodbye to my Harrogate commute. Elsewhere the Charlie Hebdo attack took place.

Nothing much happened in June, so I made a list of my favourite books. He had a weekend away in the Peak District with friends. The Assembly Lineplayed a gig and the Women’s World Cup kicked off.

I actually found a use for reading Jane Austen in July and the United States triumphed in the Women’s World Cup. The Assembly Lineperformed and we launched FinnStore. We attended the Finnish picnic and held our first annual family BBQ. Leeds Samurai earned their second ever league victory while in Manchester. I started piano lessons and I enjoyed my first month free from Toastmasters area governorship.

In December we completed the 6th annual Holiday Food Drive for local homeless shelters and published the 5th edition of the Leeds Restaurant Guide. We celebrated my grandma’s 90th birthday and held the Humanist winter social at the Lawnswood Arms.

Another year has flown by. One of the things that shocked me while summing up 2013 was that I used the phrase “celebrated ten years” more than once. This was the year I failed to make it into the 27 Club, so time really is ticking on.

In January I started working with full time with Knight Analysis. When I wasn’t playing Rocksmith that is. Almost all of the time I wasn’t working, I was playing the guitar. The lovely Sherlock returned and we visited Tropical World, which is not big news but something we do not do enough. Meanwhile Google started displaying ratings for the Leeds Restaurant Guide.

That brings us to June, a month in which the Leeds Restaurant Guide published its third edition and Britain was ranked as having the best healthcare system in the world (by a probably biased source, but who cares). I correctly predicted the demise of Wendy House which turned out to be the last ever one. The results of the British Social Attitude survey came out and showed that the non-religious now outnumber of all the religious put together.

After all that is was nice to spend some time relaxing in August. With relatives visiting from Canada we visited Whitby and Temple Newsam for the Finnish picnic. There were also trips to Warwick and Cardiff. We partied for Leeds Pride and I ate a bear. Robin Williams sadly left us and we remembered 100 years of Tove Jansson. More research came out showing that wine tasting is nonsense and I even spoke up in defence of social science. I finished the month by handing over Leeds Skeptics after five years at the helm.

We felt like we were in a horror movie in the November fog. Luckily it did not decent until after we had seen Alan Davis. Huffington Post published the results of their survey on religion in which “60% of people described themselves as non-religious” and “over half believe that religion does more harm than good”. I ran the Abbey Dash and finally arrived in the future as fibre was rolled out to Leeds city centre. West Yorkshire Humanists hosted a stall at Summat New.

Most of December was taken up by the Humanist Action Group’s Holiday Food Drive which raised nearly £5,000 worth of donations for local homeless shelters. The holiday season takes up time too, but not too busy to see The Who rock out at Leeds Arena. As usual, we finished the year out with a party.

I took Elina to the Dales for her birthday in March. There were ponies. Also steak. Michelle paid a visit and I competed in the International Speech Contest for the first time. Trinity opened and found out that really needed a proper roof. I read The Grapes of Wrath – not that I don’t often read, but it is such an amazing book. Sarann and Moz becamse the first A-Soc couple to get married and the Foundation published its report on on how much you can earn begging. The answer is, not much.

In September I was a little saddened to see John Oliver’s spot guest-hosting the Daily Show come to an end. We visited Michelle in Jersey and Anxiety Leeds held their first meeting after some great build-up publicity including interviews on Radio Aire and BBC Radio Leeds.

Pretty much nothing happened in November. Or maybe so much happened that I didn’t have time to blog about it. Probably the latter given we moved house. I travelled down to Colchester to compete in the UK & Ireland speech contest finals and visited Temple Works which a isn’t particularly significant event but it is an amazing building. I paid my first visit to Leeds Arena to see Nickelback and we attended our second year of Finnish Christmas carols. Meanwhile Sunday Assembly Leeds held an event that was actually on a Sunday.

Finally in December the comedian Kate Smurfwaite delivered her show at Leeds Skeptics, I walked out of my first ever gig at an incredibly disappointing Tenacious D concert. Nelson Mandela passed away and we all spent a few days scoring points off each other – it is what he would have wanted. There was some kind of holiday season and the Humanist Action Group’s annual Holiday Food Drive for local homeless shelters raised over three thousand pounds worth of donations.

There was a bold start to the year when I announced that 2010 was to be the year of CWF in January. I spoke at North Yorkshire Humanists, Leeds Skeptics celebrated it’s first birthday as well as holding one of the best attended 10:23 protests in the world and HAG set a new record. Meanwhile CWF launched it’s YouTube channel and I set David Cammeron right on the subject of Humanist soup kitchens.

It was a busy month for CWF in March with the launch of Atheist Stock and the announcement of Enquiry 2010 in the first week! Ricky D shut down the RD.net forums while HCoL launched its blog. Comedian Robin Ince spoke to Leeds Skeptics while I spoke to Leeds Atheist Society on the subject of animal consciousness as well as on BBC Radio Leeds on the Catholic Care adoption agency.

Media coverage of HCoL was building by April including coverage by the BBC website and BBC radio. At Leeds Atheist Society we had a Scientology speaker for the first time ever. We had an Easter special at HCoL before myself and Gijsbert went down to London to discuss CWF with the BHA. The month ended with Reason Week 2010 kicked off by at Leeds Skeptics and the Atheist Society AGM at which John was elected president.

The big news in June was the Enquiry 2010 conference which was a huge success and featured speakers including A C Grayling, Chris French, Evan Harris, Andrew Copson and many others. Gijsbert was elected onto the University of Leeds Equality & Diversity Committee, I got new housemates and Humanist Week took place.

Much like March, the first week of July was one of launches with the first CWF newsletter being released and the Secular Portal Resource Library being launched as well as us opening the CWF office in Leeds city centre. Leeds Skeptics moved to Mr Foley’s and world cup fever even infiltrated HCoL. Meanwhile Leeds Atheist Society partied hard at their End of Year Ball and we hit Bristol for the AHS AGM.

The decade is over and a new one has begun. So once you’re done clearing up from the wreckage of NYE parties and making arbitrary promises about how you are going to change your life, it might be nice to take a quiet moment to reflect on the fun and games we’ve enjoyed during the past year.

Most of our time in April was taken up by Rationalist Week 2009 whether it be planning, writing talks, gathering equipment or the week itself – and of course, being interviewed by the local press. This was shortly followed by the LAS AGM at which we elected Sophie as president.

Lighter nights resulted in be finally spending some quality time at the park in May as well as having a 4am post-close BBQ. It wasn’t all fun and games though as I set a new personal record with a 44 hour shift.

Stress levels were running high in July as I battled with letting agents and finally made it in to my new apartment, not to mention swine flu running rampant. I celebrated 5 years of blogging and re-launched this website in preparation for the CWF website integration. Meanwhile Leeds Atheist Society went camping and HAG expanded our activities.

I kicked off the fun in August with a visit down to Swindon to visit Kieran and followed it up with a good warming of my house. We also said goodbye to Michelle and Rich went back in the closet meanwhile I got myself an iPhone and the Chris Worfolk Foundation was incorporated.

The arrivial of September saw the start of a new academic year but also resulted in us having to say goodbye to Felix. Elsewhere Si took another step towards becoming an alcoholic and Derren Brown correctly predicted the lottery numbers.

Change was afoot in the month of October as LAS got into it’s full swing for the 2009/2010 academic year. I celebrated by birthday, myself and Daryl planned the re-launch of Leeds Skeptics in the Pub and the Chris Worfolk Foundation held it’s first official trustee meeting.

Finally in December we won a huge victory in the form of Killing in the Name beating X-Factor to Christmas number one. I left The D after three years and tried to carry on my life under very testing conditions. Finally the year ended with a good old fashioned Circle party for New Year’s Eve amidst a very drunken weekend for myself and Kieran.

That concludes fun times ’09. Things will be no doubt be just as exciting in 2010 – officially the year of the Chris Worfolk Foundation, which I will be writing about later. And as if that wasn’t enough we even have a new Doctor Who as well! It’s all going on in the next twelve months.

Having been desperate to avoid work over the holidays and I took an hour out over Christmas to draw up this post leaving me with only the events that took place in the last few days to add. Given this you would think I could manage to get it out on the 1st, but apparently not. In any case, 2008 is now well and truely over and we move another step closer to there being another decade between when I was born and where we are now. So here it is…

Is it really this time again? Actually I don’t remember the end of 2007 so I don’t really know how long it feels like. I think I spent it working after having severe problems on New Year’s Eve. Still, hopefully this year’s festivities will prove to be a bit better, wherever I end up being. In any case, the year’s end seems a good time to ponder over what’s happened this year.

Interestingly enough, nothing happened in January. Jack left which was quite sad and something that is hard to believe it’s been a year since. Still, I’ll make it to Australia one day!

It snowed in March, which Michelle was at hope ironically enough. The School of Computing agreed to rename to the Chris Worfolk Institute of Computing Excellence and Fonze drank himself into A&E. Good times.

Of course, things really got interesting in April. The main reason, obviously, was the massive festival of free thought that was Rationalist Week 2008. What a week, what an amazing week. Though there was also the small matter of finishing my FYP.

Well, that’s it, 2008 in a nutshell. Extensively cherry picked to miss out all the events that really mattered to you and inclusive of events few people really cared out. But there you go, hopefully 2009 will be even more interesting.